So exciting! Our bananas are almost ready:
We accidentally left the chicken coop door open all night. The mister thought I had shut it; I thought he had. The hens tucked themselves away in the hen house, and luckily no critter came along to eat them during the night.
When dawn came, I saw the hens milling around the yard, so I came out with a handful of lettuce to lure them back into the coop. They followed me right in, but our boss hen, Big Joan Jett, decided I wasn’t distributing the grub quickly enough and flew up at the lettuce.
That startled me, making me jump back and drop the lettuce. That startled the hens, who scattered, some outside the open door. So I had to go back inside for MORE lettuce to re-lure the hens. I can see already it’s going to be one of those days.
Open thread.
Baud
Sounds like Jett has a lettuce abuse problem. Maybe time for an intervention?
satby
Some days you just know, right? But at least you got them all in, and can enjoy your morning beverage of choice at leisure now.
PurpleGirl
I hope your day becomes better, Betty. I haven’t yet decided what I’m doing today. Yesterday I took back to a store a toastoven I’d bought thsat was too big for my kitchen counter. Maybe I’ll do some recycling today, or rather take some things to thrift shops for donation.
Iowa Old Lady
Back to the gym after a week’s break. Pain!
NotMax
Lettuce pray.
currants
Bananas! YOUR bananas! (as opposed to YOU’RE BANANAS?) Is this a garden chat?
Might almost (or not) be worth living in the subtropics to grow bananas…is it?
MattF
When you have hens, you have a pecking order. It’s not a metaphor.
OzarkHillbilly
Bananas…. I’m jealous. Just can’t get them fresh up here.
I use scratch to gather my chickens, Betty. It’s like crack to them.
Gotta take my truck in for a recall this morn. Seems the pinion nut in the rear end likes to come loose for no apparent reason. Not good. I had one shear off in the wilderness of western S.Dakota once. Blew a thumb sized hole in the bottom of the differential and chewed everything inside it up something fierce. Not a fun trip.
Elmo
Betty, be thankful your chickens aren’t Delawares. I had a Del rooster actually attack me when he thought I was menacing one of my turkey hens. Flew up at me and took a chunk of flesh out of my left wrist – twisted the bite around in his beak and then it tore when he fell. After almost thirty years of animal handling and general construction work, one of my biggest scars is from a damn bird.
raven
@Elmo: And I sliced my ulnar nerve taking chicken to the grill!
satby
Anyone see Booman’s post yesterday?
Here: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2015/7/8/23826/82361
bystander
Speaking of bananas, Mike Allen on Moanin’ Joe just told us that Scott Walker’s common man campaign has scored a coup against HRC with his RV tour. This stands in direct contrast to HRC’s Scooby van. Allen did this while wiggling around like he was sitting on something pointy. We call them schpilkes in these here parts, but you call them what you want.
How does anyone listen to this crap?
Baud
@satby:
I did. I thought he articulated the challenge Bernie has pretty well.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: @Elmo:And my son got 2nd and 3rd degree burns catching chicken falling off a grill. Dangerous birds them chickens. Not a surprise seeing as they are the direct descendents of velociraptors.
bystander
Everybody else sees bananas in BC’s garden. I see a tarantula hideout.
Germy Shoemangler
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler:
That’s awesome.
satby
@Baud: I did too. I would love a government headed by a true progressive like Bernie with a Congress that would actually enact his programs, but I really am not willing to risk a Republican win in any way.
satby
@Germy Shoemangler: Because the GOP was short on “who the fuck is he?” candidates?
Germy Shoemangler
@Baud: I checked wikipedia (I know, not the greatest source)…
He’s a vet! He served during the Vietnam war. In West Germany.
gogol's wife
On the 4th of July, a beautiful white rooster with bright-red comb came ambling down our driveway. We really didn’t know what to do for him. He ambled off. I hope he found his way home.
Baud
@satby:
I’ll decide on the risk involved when it comes time to vote for a nominee. It’s too early for me to make these types of decisions, before we’ve had a single debate even.
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler:
He does stand out in the GOP field.
OzarkHillbilly
@bystander: Heh. During the depression my old man worked at his brother-in-law’s local grocery to help out. They got a load of bananas and as Pop was unloading them he had a tarantula crawl out on to him. No, he didn’t say, “Oh cool, look everybody!”
raven
The Rolling Stones Play Little Red Rooster 1964
raven
No bananas on fishing boats!
Germy Shoemangler
@Baud: I read he’s a foxx newz commentator. So I guess he’ll be giving up that gig.
Why not just run Roger Ailes and be done with it? Why all the middle-man bullshit?
Roger Ailes for president.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I may send him money, but I’ll probably vote for Hillary.
Germy Shoemangler
Howlin’ Wolf
Elmo
@raven: bah. Comes from the same source as women being bad luck on boats, and if I believed that then I’d be in real trouble.
raven
@Elmo: Why No Bananas!
Watermen are a mysterious lot. While we are known for our simple pragmatism, we also have many odd quirks. Superstitions have been prevalent on almost every vessel I have worked on. I feel that this is due to the nature of a waterman in that he sees the randomness of the world around him juxtaposed with the rhythmic, seasonal flows of nature and then tries to reconcile these observations into some sort of personal and/or environmental order. As Stevie Wonder pointed out so eloquently:
“When you believe in things you can’t
understand, that’s superstition”.
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler:
Ailes is too valuable to them where he is.
Betty Cracker
@satby: Interesting article. He articulated some of the misgivings I have about HRC very well too. Because I’m in Florida, sometimes I worry about her campaign in terms of the Crist Curse, as in Charlie Crist vs. Evil Rick Scott in our most recent gubernatorial contest. It’s not a fair comparison — Hillary was never a Republican. But she is a thoroughly known quantity, which the Crist campaign sold to FL Dems as a strength but which blew up in our faces in the worst fucking way possible.
Elmo
@OzarkHillbilly: @raven:
Delawares are the perfect meat chickens. They’re big, they grow fast, and they’re so mean and ornery that by the time they’re big enough to butcher you can feel a little gleeful about it.
Manyakitty
Betty, how long did it take for your bananas to mature? My parents have some growing in Tampa, but when I was there a couple of months ago, my dad said the fruit hadn’t changed much once it came out.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I agree. No one is a lock this year.
ThresherK
Betty, we are counting on you to grow the Last Bananas on Earth. (Now that sounds like a summer blockbuster!)
You likely know that 96% of bananas in the world are one variety, and should the blight or fungus hit, it’ll be incredibly destructive. It’s happened before.
I’ll help by getting a head start on this. Is it too soon for banana daquiries on a sultry, warm morning?
Betty Cracker
@Manyakitty: They take a really long time to ripen — weeks and weeks after the bananas first appear. I’m not sure how long exactly. Once they yellow up a bit, I’ll take them inside to finish the process.
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: Makes sense. I guess that means it’s time for a phone call to the folks, if for no other reason than to check on the nanners.
debbie
@satby:
Thanks for the link. Is it too much to hope Bernie will be a positive influence on Hillary’s philosophy? I can’t get past the feeling that a vote for Hillary would be a return to the 1990s — the latter part when everyone was being down-sized.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Based on what evidence?
Baud
@debbie: @Omnes Omnibus:
Jerry Brown was a throwback, but he seems to have been good for California. It’s hard to predict these things.
satby
@debbie: The late 90s were good economically, it was the early 90s and the early oughts. I was in IT for that span (up to 2013, actually) and the only times I had serious layoffs were in 89-91 and again after the overdone frenzy of Y2k in 2002. The 90s were some of my most secure years ever as a single parent.
I once told the CBOT traders that if we could have the peace and prosperity of the Clinton years back, I’d blow the Big Dog myself.
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: I … the fuck … I was living in VA when he was gov and I have no fucking idea who he is.
Impressive.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: It’s not too much to hope at all — it seems to me HRC’s platform is considerably further left than it was in 2008. I don’t know if that’s all down to Sanders’ popularity with progressive Dems, but it probably does have an effect.
That smarmy prick John Edwards can point to exactly one contribution in his whole worthless life; he got his fellow candidates to utter the word “poverty” during the 2008 campaign. Sanders is putting wealth inequality and the influence of money in politics front and center, and I think the Dems are better for it.
Another Holocene Human
West Germany! K’town! Some of my peeps are from just outside K’town, that’s almost like being related. lolololol
MattF
@Germy Shoemangler: According to Wikipedia, Gilmore is on the NRA Board of Directors, a FOX News commentator, President and CEO of some conservative think-tank, something-something Homeland Security, and just can’t resist running for political office.
rikyrah
Citizens United, folks.
Citizens United.
…………………….
‘Super PACs’ Take On New Role, Organizing Voters
by TRIP GABRIEL
JULY 7, 2015
IOWA CITY — College students supporting Rand Paul for president were out in force going door to door in this university town recently, using their iPad Minis to help identify Republicans committed to voting for the Kentucky senator in next year’s Iowa caucuses.
And when Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana visited the state the same week in June for town-hall-style meetings in Waukee, Council Bluffs and Sioux City, his supporters collected voters’ names and emails with an eye toward caucus day.
But the Paul and Jindal campaigns were not behind these time-honored grass-roots organizing efforts. Instead, in a twist that shows how even retail politics is being transformed by a flood of loosely regulated big money, the two candidates’ courtship of voters is being carried out by “super PACs,” which are using their abundant war chests to move into the nuts and bolts of campaign operations.
In previous election cycles, super PACs — which can raise unlimited donations from corporations and individuals alike — largely channeled money from wealthy donors into political advertising. But now they are branching out into what had seemed a fundamental function of a campaign committee: organizing voters one at a time.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/us/politics/super-pacs-take-on-new-role-organizing-voters.html?_r=0
Another Holocene Human
Bananas – Betty, just out of curiosity, are those edible and how did you obtain an edible cultivar?
Or are those the ones with lots of giant seeds surrounded with a rime of “eau de banane” paste?
MattF
@rikyrah: Dueling billionaires. It’s obvious once you see it, but not really anticipated– at least not by me.
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: We’re just going to have to do better this time. We’re going to have to GOTV without Obama telling us what to do. I don’t think the Democratic Party knows what to do. Look at the last election. Epic fail. A few Dems pulled off upsets. Clearly they know what Dem Congressional and Senate leadership doesn’t. (Not blaming Reid, actually. Think he’s a lot more radical and practical than the bozos he represents.) I don’t think Hilary Clinton knows what to do. Why would she, anyway. I don’t think our OFA vets care for her “people”. But we’re going to have to do something. This election is too damn important. All these changes Obama just made at Labor Dept? They go the fuck away the first month a Republican is in office.
Another Holocene Human
@MattF: True, one just assumes that the nature of the ownership class is to collude. But these folks have egos.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: I don’t know. My husband is actually the gardener.
opiejeanne
@satby: It was 1992 when my husband was laid off from two different companies within 3 months of each other.
Another Holocene Human
@satby: The late 90s were a great time to be a worker at the low end of the job scale, too. Minimum wage was stupid low but employers were offering well over that walking in the door. I was getting Sunday differentials, holiday pay, and work pace was acceptable because they were in a hiring mode, not a do-more-with-less mode. It was also a good time because both food and stuff (you know, little incidentals, small furniture, that kind of thing) were incredibly cheap. By the late 90s rent was trending out of control, though.
But you could rent a room or a subdivided room and eat out a lot and get by. Takeout food is way too much of your paycheck now. If you have cash today you can get a foreclosure and then eat beans and rice. I tend to overeat when beans are the protein. I think they’re lacking something I need that’s in meat.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
@satby:
Based on her not saying anything different from what she said in 2008. I wouldn’t have wanted her to be the candidate in 2008 because all I heard was a return to the 1990s — which might have been good for some here, but it was also a time when the bankers were running wild.
@Betty Cracker:
I hope you’re right.
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker: I guess the mystery continues. We’re not supposed to be able to grow bananas in GNV but I think the urban heat island is working its magic because we see the plants all over the place.
Seen bromeliads, too, frost kills them but we don’t really get frost frost in the city.
Not that I think the urban heat island is a good thing.
debbie
@opiejeanne:
I was downsized in 1994 and ended up having to leave NYC, so it wasn’t a good decade for me. But more important is the fact that most of what caused the financial crisis in the Aughts was kicking into gear in the 1990s.
MattF
Stock market in China continues to plummet. Just look at the graph in the article– the run up and the fall have happened in six months. Yikes.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Have you listened to any of her speeches lately?
Another Holocene Human
@debbie: Ha, my dad lost his job due to Bill Clinton but I don’t think he was mad. He didn’t really like his job. He worked for a defense contractor, and they lost the contract to monitor Soviet test missile launches because … duh. What Clinton did had to be done, and I still don’t understand the rage about that. He went on UI and started taking classes to update his computer skills (Fortran! lol) and quickly got another job after he finished the class. This is mid 1990s because that’s when the pivot off the Cold War happened.
The codocil is that North Korea decided to get shirty and the government decided to reactivate the test missile launch monitoring program and they called everybody they’d laid off to hire them back. I think some of Dad’s former coworkers are still working there. Matter of fact, one of my good friends from school chose to work there after graduation but there was NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL I was going to work in that windowless room (Faraday cage) no matter what the money was.
The other PS is that I think Dad did do some Y2K mitigation with those old Fortran skills. He found it very amusing that COBOL was also massively in demand.
Another Holocene Human
@MattF: If the Times is right about the madhouse atmosphere and buying stocks with borrowed money then things could get worse than that, I think.
Looks like a real, old-fashioned stock panic in the offing.
Gov’t getting burned by their inept attempts to manipulate the market.
Cervantes
@Elmo:
If it helps, think of birds as modern-day dinosaurs.
Cervantes
@raven:
Can’t help you with that one!
Another Holocene Human
@debbie: Oh, I think a little thing like TWO ELECTIVE WARS had a lot to do with it.
Also not collecting taxes on sole proprietors, putting slush money into the system.
And totally allowing a firehose of money to flood into the housing market. That was a George W. Bush signature policy, not a Clinton hangover.
Clinton’s term ended with a tech crash and a recession. State and local gov’ts were particularly hard hit. Bush did a tax cut that was not only feckless but stimulated the wrong parts of the economy. Better to keep taxes in place and subsidize state gov’ts that were hurting.
Rubin and Glass-Steagal happened in Clinton’s 2nd term but they get so much press because “both sides do it”. Let’s not miss the forest for the moss here. Bush bears huge responsibility. Oh, let’s not forget his do-nothing SEC that allowed Madoff and other scammers to flourish. It just goes on and on with him.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
I haven’t had much of a chance since Bernie’s arrival, but I will. I wouldn’t be upset to be wrong. On the other hand, if Hillary has moderated her previous stances, do you think she’ll stick to them if she’s the nominee?
Gin & Tonic
@Another Holocene Human: that COBOL was also massively in demand.
Still is.
debbie
@Another Holocene Human:
The elective wars came much later. I’m talking about the 1990s, a period that ended with Phil Gramm opening mocking Brooksley Born when she warned about letting banks diversify.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: So you aren’t sure of what her current positions are, but you just don’t trust her? Got it.
Another Holocene Human
Sorry, Booman, you read pundits too much. Dems win elections with GOTV. That’s why we have primaries. The person with the best GOTV machine is going to win. That’s a good indication of who wins the general. I’d trust an upset candidate more to win the general. Gore won but didn’t quite pull it off. He had no real opposition.
We talk about persuasion but it’s all bullshit. Look at the numbers. It’s about hauling voters to the polls. The GOP candidates are all vile, and none of the Dems are stupid enough to be running GOP lite except maybe Webb but fuck him. So the motivation will be there, all you need is ORGANIZATION.
Maybe Sanders can, maybe Sanders can’t.
Booman, wake up. 2008 and 2012 were literally the last two elections where Dems elected and put in office someone whom the right HATED.
It doesn’t matter what they think any more. It matters that we knock on doors and hand out voting guides and make reminder calls and operate voter vans.
Another Holocene Human
@debbie: And I’m telling you that is a small piece to the disaster that has been way over exaggerated by people who have a vested interest in defending GOP “leadership” and the neoliberal batshit theories that ran rampant through the Bush administration.
There’s so much stuff that he did you’d get fatigued going through it all. But I refuse to accept this notion that Clinton was just as bad as Bush. He was not.
debbie
@Another Holocene Human:
In no way am I a Bush supporter or defender, but Clinton can’t get a total pass either.
@Omnes Omnibus:
I must have missed the memo telling me to take this one politician at her word and forget all the previous things that were said.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Right, because that is what I said…
Punchy
@ThresherK: That’s a hell of a depressing Wiki entry. Pretty much lays out the fact that bananas will go likely go extinct. How in the hell can I make friends slip and fall if there’s no banana peels?
geg6
I don’t care a whit about Hillary or Bernie today. I’m stressing over how I keep Lovey from eating anything after 6pm this evening in preparation for her spay surgery tomorrow. It may sound like an easy thing (just don’t give her anything), but Koda expects table scraps and treats and will not understand why she can’t have them. And she can’t have them because Lovey will have a fit if she doesn’t get some.
I don’t know what to do.
raven
@geg6: Crate in another room?
opiejeanne
@debbie: In 92, it was the tail-end of a depression felt state-wide in California, but Northern California was about two years ahead of the south, so they were in recovery by the time it hit us. Actually, his first layoff notice came the week before Christmas in 91 but they kept finding work for him through all of February. The second place closed their doors about 6 weeks after hiring him.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: Can one of you take Lovey for a walk while the other gives Koda treats? Or do they expect simultaneous walks?
Cervantes
@bystander:
Day-O!
Another Holocene Human
So, I am glad confederate memorials are being vandalized to say “black lives matter”. Not only is the message totally on point, it shows at last that we’re a real country with room for political dissent. In their grandparents’ generation, somebody would gotten lynched for that.
Malcolm X’s father was killed just for being outspoken in Michigan.
The Klan threatened to kill Nichelle Nichols’ father in Illinois.
My coworker’s grandfather, who was Black and an Indian got in a literal shooting match on his property with some white men in Florida.
These things are very, very real, and very, very close to us.
I have a coworker who is close in age to myself. Her cousin was “disappeared” by state troopers on a lonely Southern highway. She keeps a gun in her car to this day.
The textbooks are lying to the youth about history. These are stories that demand to be told.
Another Holocene Human
@Punchy: There are MANY bananas! Americans are fixated on the one variety.
Same thing with mangoes. You only ever see one or two cultivars. (If one, it’s always the one one–Tommy Adkins.)
We have more types of tomatoes, probably because so many Americans grow them and are familiar with the notion that they come in different shapes and sizes and colors (oo la la).
Germy Shoemangler
Yes we have no bananas
We have no bananas today.
geg6
@raven:
That might even be a bigger problem than no treats. No Koda/no Lovey will cause great lamenting.
@Betty Cracker:
That’s a good idea. Gonna try that.
opiejeanne
@Another Holocene Human: And because “heirloom” tomatoes suddenly became the rage with home gardeners about 20-30 years ago. There were always people who grew them, but enthusiasm exploded around that time for many old varieties, and for varieties only thought of as novelties until then.
Matt McIrvin
@Germy Shoemangler: Let me guess: his policy plan is that he’s going to personally repeal all car taxes in America.
Linnaeus
Work all night on a drink o’ rum!
gvg
@Another Holocene Human: You can grow bananas in Gainesville just fine, and have been able too for awhile, you just have to grow the right cultivars. Bananas are mainly tropical which in this case means they ignore seasons, since the tropics don’t have any. This happens to mean the crops take around 18 months to ripen. they also grow on a stem from the ground (trunk) that has to remain untouched by frost the whole time. what happens is winter cuts them down before they ripen. The ones we can grow are the ones which ripen in about 9 months. I think I’ve read they originate from the subtropical regions which would make sense. It also helps if you try to push the growing faster with fertilizer. Another thing is that bananas like more potassium than most crops, which makes some sense since that is something they are know for being a source of. It is also supposed to help if you cut out the later suckers of your clump so that the plant puts more energy into the first few suckers it (trunks) sends up each season. You are trying to beat the cold. I am currently drawing a blank on the cultivar that works best here, but there is usually a grower at the Alachua farmers market on Saturday so talk to him. I haven’t done it in several years but I have grown bananas here.
Bromelids vary in cold hardiness and some do just fine. There are several growers around here that mostly produce in greenhouses but keep finding new ones that are fine outside so there are more availible every year. Also plant under evergreens so cold clear nights are protected and put alot of pinestraw and branches on top in winter. I alswys cut the brances off the christmas tree and put them on top of mine for late winter to protect them and it works well. They don’t seem to need much light in winter and can take being almost buried.
Raja Puri! thats the one that produces around here. they all live, its the producing fruit that is tricky.
http://www.going-bananas.com/bananavarietycatalog.htm
http://www.tytyga.com/Banana-Trees-s/1833.htm
http://www.justfruitsandexotics.com/JFE/
also look up zoneten and chestnut hill nursery
Matt McIrvin
@debbie: I think Sanders’ challenge, or Obama, or the times, or something already has been a positive influence on Hillary Clinton. She’s not sounding just like a 1990s Democrat, which is heartening.
Booman’s summary of the situation is good. I’m uneasy, but I think keeping a Democrat in the White House is job 1.
But the other thing, which I was saying earlier, is that if Sanders can’t win the general (and my intuition is that he can’t) he probably can’t get the Democratic nomination either. The scenarios in which he gets one but not the other are a fairly narrow range of possibilities. More likely, he keeps Clinton from just coasting through with a lazy campaign that can’t hack it in the general.
He definitely has a shot at winning the New Hampshire primary, which just makes this a real fight, which is probably good in excitement/GOTV terms (see 2008).
ruemara
@Another Holocene Human: Man I haven’t heard FORTRAN & COBOL in a dog’s age.
Bananas is working out on vacation like your trainer might be looking. But this spare tire says “no slacking, fatty”. I suppose I’ll be sticking to only 30 grams of carbs from grains too. Goodbye, dreams of bread.
Comic-Con awaits! Would you believe I’ve already been called with a flight delay?
Matt McIrvin
Mostly I’m worrying about this:
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war
Everything old is new again! We could have a good old-fashioned nuclear armageddon with Russia like God intended.
debbie
@Matt McIrvin:
I agree. If Hillary’s the candidate, I’ll vote for her, but I’d like to feel enthusiastic about that prospect.
Botsplainer
Another day, another asshole comment from Trump:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3309129/posts
Everybody knows that blacks are the real racists. Trump is locking down the old white guy GOP primary voter demographic – most of the old white guys I know that long for a day when they can say “nigger” in public without being excoriated are really enthusiastic about him.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: I know some guys like that who have biracial grandkids!
What a twisted web we weave!
ps: not clicking on that link. the only freep I frequent is Detroit Free Press
Matt McIrvin
The other interesting thing on the Democratic side is the continued significant support for Joe Biden as a candidate, even though he hasn’t announced or done much of anything to indicate that he’s going to announce (but rumors continue to circulate). In most polls he’s close to Bernie Sanders or even slightly ahead.
Felonius Monk
@Botsplainer:
Steve M. makes an interesting comparison of Trump and LaPierre today.
MattF
@Felonius Monk: Interesting, but the comparison is unfair to LaPierre. LaPierre is a disciplined fanatic who knows exactly what he’s doing, and exactly what he has to do to get what he wants, while Trump is…
Manyakitty
@geg6: Go out to dinner.
Manyakitty
@Matt McIrvin: I still think Bernie has a chance. Most people I know will hold their noses and vote for Hillary in the general election simply because she has a D after her name, so it’s voting against the other guy.
If Bernie wins the nomination, his supporters will be voting for him specifically. This is what got Obama elected, and will drive the GOTV effort.
(This is a simplified take, but I stand by the core argument.)
cmorenc
@Botsplainer:
BTW: Back in the days of the still-segregated small-tow south of the 1950s, most upper-middle class whites disdained referring to blacks as “niggers” – because that was regarded as crude redneck white trash-speak. The word used in polite society was “nigrah” – as if softening the ending with a vowl-ish sound instead of a hard consonant changed anything about the degrading nature of the reference. Likewise, people in polite society avoided crude redneck organizations such as the KKK – and instead joined “citizen’s councils” – who favored using the law enforcement structure to keep blacks in their place instead of terrorists in white KKK robes.
I spent many summers as a child in a small town in eastern North Carolina that was just like I described, and my dear late grandmother was the epitome of what I’m talking about with insistently using “nigrah” instead of “nigger”.
Quaker in a Basement
Those bananas are “almost” ready? The produce manager at the market where I shop disagrees. Those are riper than the ones I see offered for sale.
Tree With Water
I grew up with friends whose grandfather called a elephant-eared bush that he grew in the fog belt south of San Francisco a banana tree. It wasn’t, or leastwise no bananas could possibly grow in that climate. In the days when we were ridiculously young, one day we found a bunch of green bananas in it, and naturally assumed they had sprouted overnight. As I recall, we went whooping into his house to tell him the big news, and only wish now I could remember the look on his face.